CK’s Quebec Riding Watch–Part 1 Montreal

Everybody’s coming out with them. I thought I should put in my two cents. I have divided my analysis into two parts as it will be long, particularly my take on Montreal ridings.  I have added some trivia, some trademark CK snark and some humour.

There will be a few notable differences off the bat. For openers, unlike in 2008, when Jean Charest campaigned for the Bloc Quebecois in response to not only Stevie Spiteful’s announcement of art and culture cuts, but also in anger of then ADQ leader, Mario Dumont’s obvious partisan cheerings for Steve, Charest will be sitting on the sidelines this time around.  One reason is that he and his party are polling very low and remain stubbornly mired in scandals. I don’t think any federal party would want to have Jean Charest’s name attached to their campaigns at any rate.  There is also another reason for this; Stevie Spiteful, via Christian Paradis, recently signed a deal with Charest, via Nathalie Normandeau, basically giving us the go ahead to explore our portion oil and gas field in the Gulf of St-Lawrence, Old Harry.  Apparently,  Steve added a little insurance policy for himself  in this deal; that Charest was not to intervene in the upcoming election.

Another thing I’ve noticed from running around Montreal this week-end through the various ridings, the Liberals pretty much have all their signs up. The NDP have generic signs of Jack Layton with the slogan “Travaillons Ensemble”.   Only Tom Mulcair has his riding signs up in Outremont, from what I’ve seen.  As of this morning, as I arrived in Westmount-Ville-Marie, where I work, I saw generic Bloc Quebecois signs with Gilles Duceppe’s mug shot, with the slogan “Parlons”. I have yet to see the Harpercon and Green Party signs anywhere to date.

On to the festivities!

The Obvious

Outremont:  Why not start with my riding?  At this time,  as I’ve mentioned above, only Martin Cauchon and Tom Mulcair, the two front runners have their signs decorating the neighbourhood.  No Harpercon, no Bloc and no Green Party signs up, yet.  I wonder if they’ll bother?

Right now, it’s too close to call, however, as Jean Lapierre tweeted last night, apparently, the Bloc has inserted a weak candidate in Outremont and, according to Lapierre,  gives an advantage to Mulcair. We’ll see how this plays out. I have no idea who the Harpercon is, but odds are, he/she wouldn’t be in the game to begin with and probably wouldn’t change much in the outcome for either Cauchon or Mulcair.

In 2008, Mulcair’s vote count did go down by nearly 8% and his win against the weaker Sebastien Dhavernas was not a landslide. It would be interesting to see Mulcair face off against the Liberal MP who held the riding for 11 years.

What is interesting is that both Mulcair and Cauchon have been touted as leadership hopefuls for their respected parties. To be contenders, it would be kinda helpful if they won their own seat, n’est-ce pas?

Papineau:  If there’s one thing Gilles Duceppe (as many separatists tend to) has in common with Stevie Spiteful, it’s his disdain for all things Trudeau. Yes, he not only wants this seat back, he does want to see young Trudeau out of politics.

The election in 2008 produced very close results.  There really wasn’t any reason for Vivian Barbot to lose her seat. Had it been another Liberal candidate of less star quality, I’m pretty sure that she would’ve won again. In fact, I was actually betting against Trudeau in 2008.

Justin Trudeau, a rookie and like Cauchon, a leadership hopeful somewhere down the line. He will be facing a rematch against the veteran Bloquiste, Vivian Barbot.   She’s already getting pretty nasty, including invoking Jason Kenney and the rest of Harpercon bigotry (ok, another thing they have in common with Harpercons).  She plans to use Trudeau’s statement about the term “culturally barbaric”  being inappropriate against him. Good luck with that. Not sure how well that will fly amongst the immigrants in Park-EX and that small portion of St-Michel that covers the riding.  Furthermore,  as a Haitian immigrant, is she implying that some immigrants are superior to others?

Although, not all that creative about it, calling him a “delittante” is hardly original.  She is right about one thing though:

“Last time we had an inexperienced person who surfed on the name of his father,” Ms. Barbot said in an interview. “This time, he’ll have to answer for his acts.”

However, Trudeau appears to be looking forward to the challenge.

“When you have that quality of attack against you, it seems to me more like an endorsement that I was doing something right,” Mr. Trudeau said

This was in response to Gilles Duceppe’s usual ‘Trudeau isn’t good for the French language and culture schtick.”

Trudeau will have to start leaving the safety of Park – Ex and into the hostility of Villeray and that portion of St-Michel Papineau covers where the Francophone separatists live if he’s to better his odds.

Added trivia: To Trudeau’s credit, he is probably the only politician to have slept outside, in winter, on a Downtown sidewalk for one night in 2010 to participate in the yearly Five days For the Homeless campaign.

Sidenote:  There is a rumour that the NDP and the Bloc made a deal pertaining to Papineau and Outremont; that Bloc will run a weak candidate in Outremont to help Mulcair win and the NDP will run a weak candidate in Papineau so Gilles Duceppe can rid the riding (and politics) of all things Trudeau.  If Jean Lapierre’s earlier tweet is true, I have to wonder what each of those parties promised these ‘weak candidates’ for running in almost sure loser ridings for them?

Close Races from 2008

Jeanne Le Ber: A close election last time around for the Bloc Quebecois, incumbent, Thierry St-Cyr against a rather weak Liberal candidate, Christian Feuillette. This time, he is facing another weak candidate in Mark Bruneau, IMO.  Read a profile that was done on him here when he was running for the nom in 2008.   I’ll say this, he’s nothing if not colourful, according to what I’ve read about him.

Bruneau is what appears to be a parachute candidate; not exactly a boy from the area, unless you count some business venture in Nun’s Island.  That is something St-Cyr, as a candidate who knows the riding, could well have to his advantage.  Another thing St-Cyr could have to his advantage is that other than Nun’s Island, Jeanne-Le Ber is pretty much a lower income working class riding.  Bruneau may not be able to connect with his constituents.

However,  the NDP may become serious contenders this time around. They have brought in a star candidate, Tyrone Benskin, national vice president of  ACTRA and  artistic director for the Black Theatre Workshop. Although, perhaps this star candidate may have been better suited in a more English speaking riding IMO; I’m not even sure if he speaks enough French to entice this largely French speaking riding (it seems that out of his local work, he’s never acted in any French language productions, at least, nothing I’ve heard about).

I don’t Benskin will win but I do think he could be a spoiler in the race between Bruneau and St-Cyr.

Ahuntsic: Bloc Quebecois incumbent, Maria Mourani keeps squeaking by to win her seat, literally.  In 2008, a recount was necessary, the vote was so close between she and Liberal candidate, Eleni Bakopanos. In fact, Mourani has had very tight races against Bakopanos over the years.  Now, former municipal councillor and borough mayor of Ahuntsic-Cartierville, Noushig Eloyan, will be facing Ms Mourani in the upcoming election.  I guess we can call her a semi-star for the Liberals. However, I have a feeling that there will be a ballot recount in this riding following this election as well.

Somewhat Less Obvious

Lac St-Louis:  A Liberal stronghold since the riding was created in 1997; first held by Clifford Lincoln and then Francis Scarpaleggia.  However, when the riding used to be Lachine-Lac St-Louis, it was held by the Progressive Conservative, Bob Layton, Jack Layton’s dad during the Mulroney years.  It is also to be noted that while Liberal incumbent, Francis Scarpaleggia took the riding by a landslide in the last election against then Harpercon candidate, Andrea Paine, his vote count has been slipping steadily each election in recent years.

Needless to say, having  Larry “Senator Touchdown” Smith  run against Scarpaleggia this time around, Stevie Spiteful does have this WASPy (home to at least three yacht clubs, chappy!)  riding targetted.  It is also a riding that is leaning further to the right these days. Plus, if  I have heard many Anglo callers on CJAD, many of whom from that riding or so they claim, also say they believe that the Harpercons will fight harder for Anglo rights. Good luck with that.

Trude the Prude from CJAD on the Gang of Four once actually said that she had no problem with Larry Smith’s whining about his “catastrophic pay cut”, in fact, she said she found it more altruistic for rich people to run for office and serve than for some ordinary person who earns 60K per year to do so. 

Some humour: An anti-Harpercon slogan for the Senator: You don’t want to see your football hero suffer anymore? Want him to go back to the lifestyle to which he has become accustommed? Set him free! Don’t vote for him! No?  Aack! Don’t fit on a bumper sticker anyway!

Dark Horse

Mount-Royal: Let the wingnut wanker games begin! The contest will be about who’s best for Israel! No, I’m not joking. I wish I was.

The riding where many will likely fall asleep thinking this is a foregone conclusion, unless, of course, you’re a political junkie like I am and know better.

Having been in Liberal hands since 1940, some of those years, held by P. E. Trudeau, it has been considered one of the few of the safest Liberal seats in Canada. We’re about to see if this will hold true.

As a multi-ethnic riding with a significant Jewish population, this is definitely one of Jason Kenney’s targetted ridings.  Many households in this riding received those nasty 10 percenters depicting Liberals as Anti-Semitic.

The Harpercons had been planning to use Stevie Spiteful’s strong, unbreakable loyalty (or should I say  co-dependence??) to Israel.  They picked a doozy of a candidate to fit this bill. Saulie Zajdel, a Yarmulke sporting,  obnoxious,  former municipal councilor.  Picture a bearded shorter version of John Baird.  I’m going to guess he’s going to prove to be a hyper partisan Zionist. He’ll fit right in with them. Yes, he will be campaigning mainly on Steve’s strong loyalty (I prefer to call it co-dependence) to Israel. 

My question is, can he beat incumbent, Irwin Cotler?  Irwin Cotler is still quite popular in the area, although, his party certainly isn’t. I have heard from a few different people that as much as they like Cotler, they think he’s in the wrong party.  As such, even though Cotler had beaten Harpercon candidate, the lower profile, Rafael Tzoubari in 2008, his vote count has been steadily on the decline.

Although, Zajdel appears to be somewhat of a last minute second choice, as an even bigger star, founder of the short lived Equality Party, Mayor of Cote-St-Luc and President of B’nai Brith, Robert Libman was being courted up until last Wednesday by the Harpercons.

“Yes, the prospect of running is tempting,” Libman told the Jewish Tribune on Jan 13. “Our community has never had a prime minister like Stephen Harper, who is so strong in support of Israel.”

As it turns out, Robert Libman is choosing to remain in the private sector. Maybe he doesn’t even want to have his name attached to all those Harpercon scandals of late. Who knows?

I had attended an Irwin Cotler town hall a few weeks ago.  Talking about Israel, the various problems in the Middle-East were on the agenda, but he also wanted to talk about health care and the economy and democracy.  Hell, he even had a petition in the back of the room for all to sign to save universal health care. However, most who were lining up to make comments or ask questions only seemed to want to talk about Israel or lecture Mr. Cotler about Israel.  Ain’t that special?

After having witnessed that Zionist wank fest, even though Robert Libman is out of the picture, I contend that Cotler will have his hands full with Mr. Zajdel.  This isn’t going to be who’s the best MP for the riding, or even who’s party would serve Canadians best, but who’s leader would make the best PM for Israel.  My husband, who is Jewish, had always been a Cotler supporter when he lived in the riding, thinks this is insanity.  In his mind, he lives, pays taxes and works in Canada, not Israel.  Sadly, at that town hall, I don’t think many of those Jews in attendance would share my husband’s opinion.

Another thing to keep in mind is that given that Zajdel was more than likely second choice to Robert Libman, will he try to over compensate?